Such a Beautiful Disaster
by Mai Ascot
Summary: Songfic: Clarisse is on her top secret mission, and comes across the city of Phoenix, searching for an entrance to the Labyrinth. While working, her mind wanders to a halfblood named Chris Rodguirez. T mainly because of extreme paranoia. And other stuff.


Disclaimer: No, as much as I wish it were otherwise, I do not own Clarisse, Chris, PJO or the song Beautiful Disaster by Kelly Clarkson. Glad we've got that all straightened out.

Yes, another songfic. I had so much fun doing Speak Now (which has now been deleted off my account because it was so atrociously bad) I decided to do another one just for Chrissie!

I must say, Clarisse and Chris are really inspiring as a couple (even though they are fictional), I mean, she's a daughter of Ares and I always wondered when I was reading the books what it would be like to have an aura of hate surrounding you, and how lonely it would be.

Then she met Chris at camp and she identified with him, but he was unclaimed. And like so many of the unclaimed, he left to join the Titans. I can't really imagine that... pain.

And then to find him, insane in the middle of the desert saying another girl's name. But she stayed with him, and I think (_I_, you guys can think what you want to) that they are actually a more meaningful couple than Percabeth. Not that Percabeth aren't meaningful and awesome yadda yadda.

I wrote over twenty five thousand words for them for pity's sake!

Twenty five thousand... *shakes head sadly*

Hopefully this will be less than that. Hopefully. Almost certainly. Yes, it will be less, my fingers couldn't take that strain.

My poor, poor fingers...

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Clarisse La Rue was softly swearing under her breath in the middle of the desert, somewhere hot, wondering why the Labyrinth had to keep moving its location just as she got close to one of the entrances.

If she ever set eyes on that smartass son of Athena who designed the idiotic thing she would personally _hunt him down. _Why would you make an _alive _building that spread through America, time meant nothing to, and had ever moving entrances?

Simple: to annoy Clarisse La Rue, and make her "simple" quest a Hades of a lot more difficult, she was sure of it.

_He drowns in his dreams  
An exquisite extreme, I know  
He's as damned as he seems  
And more heaven than a heart could hold_

At that moment she approached an extrememly hot looking town, so wobbly with heat at first she had thought it to be another mirage. With a town hall, market and building site, like the usual desert town dropped in the middle of nowhere. _Nice pad, _she thought, a smile twisting on her lips.

_Shame I'm probably going to have to destroy it, _was the unbidden thought racing through her mind. It looked like her Mum's town actually.

She started at the "park" which was no more than an overgrown sandbox with benches and a slide. After what felt like hours, she had turned over every twig looking for that annoying Δ that was the entrance to the fabled Labyrinth.

Admittedly, the only reason she had taken this amazingly awful quest was to stop the gold guy getting into her camp_. _She couldn't blame Ethan. She couldn't blame Tom. She couldn't blame Rebecca. She couldn't blame all the demigods that sided with Kronos and that backstabbing son of Hermes, Luke Castallen.

But she could blame Chris.

_If I tried to save him  
My whole world would cave in  
It just ain't right, oh it just ain't right…_

When she had first come to Camp Half Blood, she had been eight. She had spent all of a week in the Hermes cabin before at the campfire the symbol of Ares, the boar, had appeared above her head.

Ares was mostly good with his kids that way. Yes, he scared you sh*tless, yes, he never even communicated to his children other than when he needed something, but at least he claimed them promptly.

But in all of a week she had gotten the feel of the Hermes cabin. She had seen the laughing, joking pick pockets which were the _claimed_ sons and daughters of Hermes. She was sure that there were other, _unclaimed, _long lost members of the Hermes clan in there, but never knowing who they were, they grew bitter.

Like Luke.

_Get that traitor out of your head! _her mind screamed, and she went back to contemplating Chris. Chris freaking Rodguirez. __

Oh and I don't know  
I don't know what he's after  
But he's so beautiful  
He's such a beautiful disaster

He was a bit of both, he laughed and joked and joined in with pranks, but you could see when he thought nobody was looking his mouth pull down at the sides, and when he laughed, it would never quite reach his warm chocolate eyes that seemed to reflect his whole life: a dog who had been kicked one too many times.

Clarisse had seen him, in the corner of the Hermes cabin from her lovely cosy spot on the floor. He had been there for a year, almost as long as Annabeth, who only beat him by two months.

So Chris had managed to snag himself an actual corner, with a pillow and a thin blanket, which he defended very well if she did say so herself. He always seemed to be on the edge of things, not joining in so everyone noticed him, but not outside so everyone wondered why he wasn't helping with the latest Hermes cabin prank.

He was the perfect fitter inner, always _exactly _average at everything, but Clarisse had seen that he could do so much, much more.

_And if I could hold on  
Through the tears and the laughter  
Would it be beautiful?  
Or just a beautiful disaster_

She had been training partners with him, and was expecting to pummel him like she had everyone else who ever had the misfortune to spar against her.

But Chris, Chris ruddy Rodguirez had kept his defence well, got a few carefully thought out jabs in, and her brute strength had been becoming a weakness.

She hadn't lost, oh no. But she hadn't won either.__

His magical myth  
As strong as with I believe  
A tragedy with  
More damage than a soul should see

When she had been claimed after that fateful week in the crowded Hermes cabin, she continued to spar with Chris, him being patient, and a good teacher. Showing her how to hold the sword and the crossbow and the dagger and the knives and the spears.

Soon she could beat her own teacher with ease, but she never forgot who taught her how to wield every weapon in the armoury.

They had stayed good friends, both year rounders, sparring in hot sun and bitterly cold snow.

But every single time another demigod was claimed, and they were bathed in a golden light by a flower, boar, bow and arrow, owl, trident (that one _was _surprising), dove and worst of all, the caduceus of Hermes, she could see his hands tense into balls, his mouth go thinner and thinner, and once, she would swear she saw a tear roll down his cheek from his hate filled eyes.

_And do I try to change him  
So hard not to blame him  
Hold on tight  
Hold on tight_

And then finally, he lost it.

He lost that smile that was always on his face, that joking air that surrounded him, that light that danced in his brown eyes. He didn't hide the frowns anymore, they dominated his whole face, and he distanced himself from the entire Hermes cabin, and even worse? None of them noticed.

It wasn't nice to know Chris in those final weeks.__

Oh cuz I don't know  
I don't know what he's after  
But he's so beautiful  
Such a beautiful disaster

And she had been the only one to see it coming, the only one to realise what would happen before it did. It was so obvious that it was painful to see the looks of surprise on the faces of the council of war when Chris and a couple others who she couldn't remember the names of went missing. It had been her who had said "He's gone to Kronos." but it hadn't sunk in until much later, and then she had cried the whole night.

Because then it had finally hit her that Chris effing Rodguirez was not coming back.

_And if I could hold on  
Through the tears and the laughter  
Would it be beautiful?  
Or just a beautiful disaster_

And she had wished that he had held on and struggled through, so then she could not think about him at her most vulnerable, that she wouldn't just get a rush of fear and adrenaline when they were going against Kronos' men, but also a rush of hope and love that accompanied Chris Rodguirez's face that was branded on her heart.

But he was never one of the soldiers, never one of the kids she cut down looking for his chocolate eyes and easy going smile. Because that was the Chris she remembered, no matter how much her head told her she was never going to find him, just some stranger in his place with dark eyes and lacking a smile. __

I'm longing for love and the logical  
But he's only happy hysterical  
I'm searching for some kind of a miracle  
Waiting so long,  
I've waited so long

It had taken an age for her to finally admit that she loved him. That she loved him not like a brother but like a whole new feeling that was roaring in her chest, singing his name. Would he even recognise her? Would the old Chris be so far buried under the dark new Chris that she would cut him down without realising it when the judgement day finally came?

It was so painful, the idea that she might kill him, or someone else, and that he would just be another casualty of war. But even worse was the idea that he was already dead, a nameless body in a shallow grave, and she would never see his face again.__

He's soft to the touch  
But frayed at the end he breaks  
He's never enough  
And still he's more than I can take

And that was why Clarisse blamed Chris Rodguirez, because he was hers, even if he didn't know it. Hers, more than anybodies. His dark hair was hers, his smile and his laugh were hers, his eyes and his aura of madness and mischief and they'll-never-know was hers, hers, all hers.

Maybe they were always hers, maybe they just became hers when she started to notice him, or when he had broken his ankle and she had stayed by his bedside feeding him ambrosia the whole time. Maybe he had only become hers when he left, or perhaps when she knew he was going to leave, or when she finally admitted to herself she was in love with annoying traitorous Chris Rodguirez.

_Oh and I don't know  
I don't know what he's after  
But he's so beautiful  
He's such a beautiful disaster  
And if I could hold on  
Through the tears and the laughter  
Would it be beautiful?  
Or just a beautiful disaster_

It would have to have gone wrong, Clarisse reflected.

Nothing ever went right in her life.

Maybe that's all Chris was, something to tempt her and make her weak, to show her what her life could be like, if it wasn't always such a mess, such a disaster.

But there had never been such a beautiful disaster.__

He's beautiful  
Oh he's so beautiful  
He's beautiful

And, Clarisse amended, that she finally realised her fatal flaw. It had always been Chris Rodguirez. Because he was as fatal as flaws come.

Somebody was round the corner, silhouetted in an alley way, screaming about a girl called Mary and about how dark it was. She should've left him, the drunk, but she found she couldn't.

Just then, the silhouette stepped into the light.


End file.
